Kenneth S. Greenberg. Honor & Slavery: Lies, Duels, Noses, Masks, Dressing as a Women, Gifts, Strangers, Death, Humanitarianism, Slave Rebellions, The Pro-Slavery Argument, Baseball, Hunting, and Gambling in the Old South. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

     Kenneth Greenberg’s Honor & Slavery is an examination of the language spoken by the elite men of the Old South, which is, as Greenberg states, “a language as alien to a modern English speaker as any more conventional foreign tongue” (xi). In order to reveal the contemporary meaning of antebellum expressions and gestures, Greenberg analyzes the contextual and symbolic meanings of the words and actions beyond their literal definition to illustrate underlying implications. Greenburg, utilizing a style of deconstructive analysis pioneered by theorist Michael Foucault, effectively demonstrates the nuances of aristocratic discourse in which “To pull noses was to comment on lies; to exchange gifts was to define community; to gamble on horses was to speak about death and about politics; and to duel was to make statements about lies; gifts, gambling, politics, and death” (145). Greenberg also argues that each of these expressions were “simultaneously also about slavery” and that it is impossible to understand the language of the Southern slaveholders without understanding the ever-present nature of status within the “peculiar institution” (145). For example, Greenburg recounts how the public reputation of honor had to be maintained at all times, even when dishonorable actions had been committed, as the possession of honor distinguished between masters and slaves. Slaves did not and could not have honor, and to deny a gentleman’s honor was to imply that he was a slave. Most often, such insults revolved around accusations of lying, which men of honor obviously did not do, although they assumed that slaves routinely did, and usually in such cases the ritual of the duel would have to be enacted to restore a gentleman’s threatened honor. Such duels could only be fought between men of high station, as lower class whites and slaves did not duel. Only by bravely risking one’s life to remove the stain of insult could one’s honor be preserved, whether it be upon the field of battle or upon the field of honor. Men of honor did not fear death, and for this reason Greenberg observes that the calm demeanor exhibited by the abolitionist John Brown at his execution inspired grudging respect among witnesses, including the pro-slavery fire-eater Edmund Ruffin. To expose a gentlemen’s private behavior in public, in effect “unmasking” him, would demonstrate that the false foundation of his reputation and effectively prove him to be a liar. In one famous incident that Greenberg depicts, Lieutenant Robert Beverly Randolph of Virginia “tweaked” the nose of then President Andrew Jackson. Randolph, angered by Jackson’s actions in his dismissal as a naval officer and feeling himself dishonored, responded by attacking the symbol of Jackson’s public face, to symbolically unmask the President to be a liar. Jackson, ever dedicated to defend his honor, responded by viciously pursing Randolph to the point that he had to be restrained by his staff.

     The majority of the information presented in Honor & Slavery can be found elsewhere in such works as Bertram Wyatt-Brown’s Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South and Grady McWhiney’s Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South, but without the emphasis on deconstructed language. While Greenberg’s thesis is original and narrative entertaining, his methodology raises questions regarding the validity of his conclusions. Much like similar concerns regarding historical psychoanalysis, there is no objective way to determine the accuracy of Greenberg’s assertions, as he argues from subjective interpretations of words beyond their definition. Deconstruction, by denying the definitive meaning of words, only creates chaos and confusion within the historical process. Therefore, although Honor & Slavery may be an intriguing read, I would not recommend it for serious scholars or students of the Old South.

Than Dossman

Honor & Slavery: Life, Duels, Noses, Masks, Dressing as a Woman, Gifts, Strangers, Death, Humanitarianism, Slave Rebellions, The Pro-Slavery Argument, Baseball, Hunting and Gambling in the Old South. By Kenneth S. Greenberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

            Kenneth Greenberg employs anthropological and ethnographical tools to interpret the language used by gentlemen, or the ruling class, of the Old South. Speech and actions are value laden, but the implications of particular words and behavior obviously evolve over time and are further impacted by the surrounding culture and context. Greenberg claims to connect each, apparently disparate, subject he reviews to notions of honor and the culture of slavery.

Influenced by postmodernist scholars, Greenberg makes some rather tenuous conclusions based on insufficient evidence. For example, he cites the reactions of a few Southerners to the game of baseball to give credence to his argument that men of honor did not run, ergo Southerners did not play baseball. As honor included notions of mastery of oneself and others, black men were naturally excluded from embracing such a virtue. As slaves did not control their own destinies, they must necessarily take a subordinate place within Southern society. Slaves were also seen as inferior beings because their alleged natural inclinations to steal, lie and cheat had been “unmasked.” Greenberg further attempts to explain the nuances of race relations by examining the concept of gift giving in the South. Slave owners could bestow the “gift” of food, shelter and free-time to slaves; but slaves could never present a gift, for all that they had in effect already belonged to their master.

Greenberg continues to review the place and consequences of gifts in the upper echelons of white society by examining the values underpinning dueling. According to the author, the “whole point of a duel was to heal a breach within the community of gentlemen” by an extreme form of gift – the bullet (81). The proponents of a duel could also give the gift of life by firing into the air. This course of action ensured that honor was vindicated whilst assuring that one’s opponent’s wife would not become a widow, nor her children orphans. On one hand Greenberg argues that slaves were excluded from actual or symbolic dueling whereas he later frames Stephen Douglas’s reaction to a brutal overseer in terms of a duel.

Greenberg determines that “Southern men of honor were ‘superficial,’” concerned more with appearances than reality and outcomes. Such a generalization unfairly depicts the members of a whole class as unintelligent buffoons. Whilst the work does include some valuable observations regarding the structure of Southern society, the author fails to supply the reader with an acceptable definition for the class of men he studies or the region he reviews. What percentage of the population where these men of honor? What level of wealth did they have? How was honor restored between men of different classes? Was honor only an obsession with upper class men and not women? Were men of honor in Savannah different from men of honor in Virginia? How did the actions of men of honor greatly differ from other complex civilizations that embraced slavery? It would appear an impossible task for any historian to adequately address this subject in 146 pages. The brief nature of this volume and the preponderance of secondary sources leave the reader dissatisfied with the conclusions presented by Greenberg.

Claire Phelan

Honor & Slavery: Lies, Duels Noses, Masks, Dressing as a Woman, Gifts, Strangers, Humanitarianism, Death, Slave Rebellions, The Proslavery Argument, Baseball, Hunting and Gambling in the Old South. By Kenneth S. Greenberg. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv + 175. Preface, acknowledgments, notes, index. ISBN 0-691-02734-X. Cloth.)

   Honor & Slavery is an examination of the code of honor or values held by Southern gentlemen of the planter class. Using a wide array of illustrative examples, author Kenneth Greenberg shows the behavior and actions of these men of honor, and the reasons and motivations that were the impetus for them. The lengthy and amusing title lists what appears at first to be a disparate collection of images, but by the end of the book, Greenberg has skillfully woven all of these into central unifying themes that give the reader excellent insights into the morals and values of Southern men of honor.

   Greenberg defines men of honor as those belonging to the “master” class, planters who owned slaves. These men considered themselves to be the elite or upper tier of Southern society. To these planters, appearance was the most important asset a man had, not only his physical appearance, but also his standing in society and how his peers viewed him. To question a gentleman’s physical appearance, actions, morals or values was the equivalent of insulting him. Bringing into question one’s character or belief was of serious concern in Southern society. This “unmasking” of, or “giving the lie” to a man of honor (calling him a liar) could and did lead to grave repercussions, with the aggrieved party often asking for the matter to be settled in a duel.

   Insulting or calling into question a gentleman’s integrity publicly or in a newspaper article were the most serious offences, again, because how a man was seen in public and by his peers in society was paramount. A man with a sullied reputation was scorned and shunned, and this was a fate worse than death for a man of honor. Having his honor blackened was to be put in a “slavish” condition, where the accuser became the master, and the insulted, a slave. No Southern white man was going to permit such an arrangement to stand for very long. Dueling was the forum in which the aggrieved man could reclaim his standing and reputation in society. This proved to the world that the gentleman was willing to risk his life, that he was not afraid of death, and was willing to die to in order to prove he was a man of integrity and honor. To show fear of dying made one a coward, gentlemen never displayed this emotion, because they were always noble and fearless. A Southern planter never dueled a man beneath his station or class. Duels were always between peers or equals. Duels usually ended with no one being hurt. The fact both duelists were willing to risk their lived fearlessly, proved to the world that they were equally men of honor whose reputation was beyond reproach. Even when no one was killed, a duel settled the argument for both parties, both men came away with their reputations intact and/or restored.

   Gambling was like dueling in that a Southern gentleman frequently made large bets and was fearlessly willing to lose everything to prove his honor. Gambling featured a healthy competition between men of honor, whether it was cards, dice or horse racing. Over time the playing field was evened out, most of the men in the peer group would win at one time or another. The point was not to make money, this was of little importance, and in gambling it was the honor won or the humiliation given. Asking other gentlemen to play cards was akin to issuing a dueling challenge. Boasts or claims would be made by all involved and the game would prove for that particular day who was a liar and who was a man of honor. This proclivity for high stakes gambling showed up on the battlefield during the Civil War. “When Confederate strategists repeatedly preferred to attack rather than assume a more prudent defensive posture, they were only giving expression to another form of popular cultural impulse toward risk. It was a losing strategy (such as at Gettysburg), but it was a strategy few Southern gentlemen could resist. The Confederacy may well have lost Civil War as result of lessons learned at Southern card tables and racetracks.” (P.138)

   Professional gamblers were considered a plague because they did not care a whit about honor or values; they were only concerned with making money and were not averse to cheating. This making money, and cheating to accomplish it, ran contrary to a gentleman’s morals and values. This is why many Southern towns banned professional gamblers,  ran them out of town or tarred and feathered them, and in some cases, such as1835 Vicksburg, actually lynched them.

   Hunting also held values similar to those of gambling and dueling. The hunter could prove his fearless bravery in the pursuit and bagging of a dangerous adversary. A coming of age ritual for young men of honor was to have their faces painted with the blood of their first kill in the field, much as an Indian warrior put on his war paint. As in gambling, Southern gentlemen loved to brag about their conquests publicly, besting an animal was akin to besting a peer. Southern hunting clubs were the rage in many cities and very competitive. Hunting and fishing stories could get quite lengthy and grandiose in their recounting amongst men of honor. Gentlemen would also have their animals stuffed and put proudly on display in their homes, a testament to visitors of their honor and bravery.

   In Southern society it was illegal for slaves to gamble, and there were laws prohibiting this. And while slaves would often go hunting with their masters, their role was to observe or act in support, such as by driving the dogs. Only the master got to shoot the prized animal, slaves were not permitted this status. To the masters, slaves had no honor.
They were lying, devious, skulking and shiftless thieves. Because their focus was always on appearances, masters often tried to see the truth about a slave by reading their facial expression. Slaves quickly learned to avoid trouble (and enjoyed puzzling their master) by wearing an inscrutable countenance. Slaves were never accorded qualities of honor. Southerners condemned abolitionist John Brown’s actions at Harper’s Ferry, but admired his bravery. He was a white man. Whereas Nat Turner (a slave) was, in his 1831 slave rebellion given no praise whatsoever. John Brown’s corpse was left untouched. Nat Turner’s was skinned and decapitated and the head passed around amongst locals. Men of honor did not have their bodies dissected (even hated white abolitionists, because they had proven themselves brave), slaves had no such honor or rights.

   Southerners did not play baseball, not just because it was a Northern game, but because running from a ball (when rounding the bases) was seen as akin to running from a bullet in battle. Hitting a ball was one thing, there a man was clearly in control, but after he hit the ball he would be running from it. Men of honor did not run from anything, and they would stand their ground, head held high. Gentlemen were not afraid to die for they were brave and fearless. A man of honor running from a ball was like a slave running away from his master. There would be no such role reversals for Southern gentlemen in the games they played.

   Two other topics covered by Greenberg include pulling the nose and dressing up as a woman. While these may appear amusing subjects at first glance, in the South they were deadly serious. The nose was very important, it protruded farthest from one’s face.
Making fun of one’s nose was to insult a gentleman’s appearance (his most important social commodity) and to call him a liar (big nose=Pinocchio). One of the biggest insults in Southern society was to tweak or pull a man’s nose. When President Andrew Jackson dismissed a naval officer, Lieutenant Robert Randolph, from his post in 1833, the “wronged” Randolph then pulled Jackson’s nose. Jackson was so livid that he had to be physically restrained from killing Randolph on the spot.

   Another way to insult a man was to question his manliness, to give him effeminate qualities. This was done to Confederate President Jefferson Davis immediately after his capture at the close of the Civil War. Cartoons and newspaper accounts depicted Davis as cowardly fleeing from capture while masquerading as a woman (wearing women’s clothes). In fact Davis later claimed he was only wearing a shawl he had grabbed on the run, but by the time his side of the story was published the damage to his reputation had already been done. Davis later said that nothing upset him more in his life than the damage done to his honorable reputation by these degrading and humiliating accounts.

   Greenberg has done a fine job in giving the reader an in-depth look into the minds of Southern gentlemen of the antebellum period. The motivations behind such men’s actions and words come into focus clearly after reading the many entertaining and illuminating examples cited in this book. The most controversial claim made by Greenberg, one that is likely to produce a lively debate, is that Southern men of honor were shallow, and not deep thinkers. Greenberg says these men were only concerned with appearance and not what was behind it; the deeper meaning of things, and this is why there were not many Southern intellectuals. Nonetheless, the book is well researched and documented, and a fine example of scholarly work.

Glen Ely

Honor & Slavery:  Lies, Duels, Noses, Masks, Dressing as a Woman, Gifts, Strangers, Humanitarianism, Death, Slave Rebellions, The Proslavery Argument, Baseball, Hunting, and Ganbling in the Old South. By Kenneth S. Greenberg.   (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1996), xvi + 176.

 Kenneth Greenberg's unlikely and somewhat subversive title provides its own cogent introduction to the book's subject matter.  The key to the book is not the seemingly unrelated topics set forth in the lengthy title, but the correlation and relationships existing between them. Greenberg focuses on the concept of Southern honor and the centrality of slavery to all aspects of Southern culture.  Through examination of the various topics in his title (and he includes others), Greenberg constructs a coherent representation of the Southern gentleman, his culture and world-view.  In doing so the author sees his work "as a work of translation, a reconstruction of a 'dead' language' (xi).” The separate "language of honor" used by Southern gentlemen does not exist today. It is a tongue embedded in and intrinsically bound up with the culture and context of slavery.  Our generation requires translation, less of words than of the culture and context that surround them. This is the real subject Greenberg's long essay.  In exploring the clues each of these subjects provides to unraveling the mysteries of Southern context and culture, Greenberg provides a warning.  Each incident demonstrates in some way that Southern men of honor were essentially "superficial, concerned to a degree we would consider unusual, with the surface of things--with the world of appearances (3)."

 Greenberg begins with a fish story, in this case P. T. Barnum's "mermaid," and the reactions the hoax produced in the North and South.  Joining the upper body of a monkey to the tail of large fish, Barnum's mermaid generated much interest and bemusement in Northern cities in the early 1840's.  When exhibited in Charleston in 1843, it generated controversy bordering on violence. Controversy developed not over the authenticity of the object (though if a hoax it was suggested that it should be burned and its owner run out of town), but over the competency and respect (or lack thereof) given to the protagonists by contending newspapermen. Each side demanded respect for their views and observations and regarded criticisms by the other as a personal attack. Though the conflicts were eventually settled with out resort to arms, Greenberg uses the mermaid as a point of departure to begin his discussion of dueling. It mattered not who was right or wrong, only if each side was accorded honor and dignity. Like in a duel, the fight did not involve the explicit reality of a given situation (who was correct, who lied or owed whom money) but the perception of honor.

 As Greenberg continues, utilizing the subject of nose-pulling, we see further example of this principle. Certainly pulling one's nose offered no overt physical threat to the pullee. It produced instead a perception powerlessness and of dishonor and represented a triumph for the puller.

The symbolism of the nose as a metaphor for a measure of  status, pre-Freudian as it was, is principally a reflection of power.  Symbols are important to Southerners (according to Greenberg) and interpreted in the South differently than in the North.  For the Southerner, the marks of the whip on the back of a slave represent that slaves bad character.  For a Northerner, especially an abolitionist, they represent the slave owner's bad character. Such great differences in interpretation and behavior become more understandable when seen in the context of slavery.

The duel also can be understood only in the context of slavery. Southern gentlemen never dueled with slaves, or their social inferiors, regardless of the extent of the insult. Allowing one to do so would elevate their status to that of a gentleman.  Appearance counted for everything.  James Henry Hammond involved Wade Hampton's four teenage daughters in a secret sexual relationship. Such a situation would seem to cry out for some sort of redress through violence.  Instead Hampton spread rumors about Hammond's character rather than expose the sexual relationship and seek redress through duel.  It was not the reality of Hammond's actions that mattered, but the perceptions of society.

Perhaps Greenberg's most revealing chapter deals with Death. Southern perceptions of honor were deeply affected by how one faced death.  Giving someone "satisfaction" by dueling with them was in a sense a great "gift," as it allowed each party to demonstrate their character through facing death.  Incongruous as it its seems, Edmund Ruffin could not help but admire John Brown, due to the way he faced death.  Ruffin found Brown "a very brave and able man" and found it "impossible not to respect his thorough devotion and undaunted courage (89)."  Brown met death in a style appealing to Southern gentlemen.  They admired the soldier's death, "erect, unafraid and standing up to enemy opposition (92)." Controlled and couragous, never subservient or in submission, in death as in life, the Southerner sought to demonstrate mastery and control. Unlike their slaves, masters could never appear helpless or dependent. Slavery again defines the contrast with the North. Greenberg speculates that Ruffin's suicide (and others) resulted from the fear of some sort of dependency rather than the fact of Northern victory.  Ruffin lost his fortune in the war and declining health would leave him unable to care for himself and control his destiny (93-94).  Control over one's fate defined a gentleman. Lack of such control defined a slave.

The final chapter of Honor and Slavery deals with baseball and Greenberg is able to connect the nature of the game to its acceptance, or in this case lack of acceptance, by the Southern gentleman. Grounding baseball as strictly Northern in origin, Greenberg identifies a curious phenomenon. Southern masters and men of honor largely ignored the game. While they might enjoy their turn at bat, they refused to run the bases, because "Southern gentlemen don't run from anything (122)." The game involved a curious change of status as one went from a hunter, searching to actively hit the ball, to prey, seeking to escape "home" before being captured by pursuers. It should be the slaves who ran, and the masters who chase them.
The author does a masterful job in defining the links of very diverse and curious phenomenon to the larger themes of honor, slavery and the essential Southern concern with image over substance. Image over substance permeated the entire slaver/master relationship, as both slaves and masters engaged in behaviors meant to define their place in the social order rather than an authentic relationship between human beings. Greenberg's book is difficult to evaluate, but always entertaining. His conclusions are largely speculative but also plausible.
 

Texas Christian University

Paul Schmelzer